


read it dangerously

by fated_addiction



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal, Code Name: Sailor V
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Romance, etc etc etc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 10:41:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2578643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You shouldn't be here</i>. Minako, Kunzite, and answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	read it dangerously

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Act 9. Prompted by a conversation about Kunzite and ramen and too many k-dramas.

It is a series of events. 

This, she'd like to think, is how it starts, or why it starts, or how she was the first one out of the five of them to remember what she knows and knows what she remembers.

The rain is heavy when she moves back to Tokyo.

 

-

 

"We _have_ a mission," Artemis grouses.

Minako glares and flashes her hand. Her umbrella is by the door. Downstairs, the television is louder. She hears her mother laughing.

"I'm hungry," she says. "And I can't stand being in this house any longer. And before you say we can head out and head to the command center -- I don't want to. I want junk food. And a magazine."

Artemis stretches out and yawns. He remains curled in a corner of her bed. There's no move to stop her. Sometimes he lets her go.

There is a corner store two streets over. Minako keeps the routine; she goes downstairs, kisses her mother and laughs appropriately at the pause in her show. Her rain boots are ready for her by the door.

She doesn't miss England. She came, she left; she was a child. Her mother asks her to pick up an onion and she makes sure she takes extra money. She wonders how meeting the others is going to go. There is no beginning and no end.

It's like there is too much color in her corner of the world, suddenly and too soon. She huddles closely to her umbrella. The houses are uniformed but bright. She picks up the greens of the park and laughs when she sees too much of the playground but can't bring herself to move and just take a minute.

The corner store waits for her anyhow. The sign is green and red, glowing into the wet sidewalk. Her feet hit the first puddle; she laughs lightly.

Inside she heads straight to the chips and the chocolate. She doesn't touch any. The coffee is were she lingers; she smiles at the attendant who blushes and turns back to the news. She catches the reflection mixing with the rain.

And then there he is. "I was wondering if you were real," he says.

He's buying ramen.

 

-

 

Dreams are much simpler. Dreams feel like memories; they remain tricky. Some days she wishes she knew the difference.

He is still handsome. He isn't smiling. The scowl isn't kind to his mouth, creasing his skin. She thinks: _I do not know this man like this_. Then Minako blinks and steps back.

"Who are you?" she asks. She isn't nervous.

"Who are _you_?" and he is more pointed than she can be. His clothes are shapeless. There is too much gray. His hair is too long and pulled back and for some reason, some unshakeable reason, she can see him laughing in her head and it makes her _ache_.

She reaches for a ramen. There is a thought. You shouldn't be here.

"This isn't going to go anywhere," she murmurs. She blinks and looks up. "I think you know that to."

His scowl deepens. "I came because you have answers."

She laughs and steels herself. The air is tight. There is a sudden sharpness between the two of them. She understands; she doesn't. She doesn't feel the need to transform. There is something else there, something darker though, and it uncurls deep in her belly, pushing at her head and heart and everything else she's made sure to trust.

"Answers?"

The words dry in her mouth. A pain pushes at her head. 

"Kunzite," she says, and then she says it again. "Kunzite," she walks the ramen container to the hot water dispenser. The soda sign next to it flickers. For some reason, she knows he's frowning. "Why do I know your name?" she asks.

It unsettles her. It unsettles him. She can feel him behind her. He seems tense, but he isn't abrupt. His eyes are glued to her back. He won't fight her here yet. Yet is the part that remains unsettling.

"Why don't I know yours?"

The plastic around the container catches under her nails. She flicks the lid open and it leans into the counter.

"I'm going to eat," she says.

 

-

 

Ami meets Usagi. Or Usagi meets Ami. Minako does not pay too much attention to what comes first. Rei follows the series though (and Minako thinks _I miss Rei_ with no pretenses) and so do more memories, real memories. She meets the Dark Kingdom generals with them, behind them, and remembers some more. Each memory is painful and tight. She can reach out and touch things (Serenity's hair, her soft, long, beautiful, bright hair that grew and grew and god, Serenity what are we going to do -- _really_ , Serenity, we do need to teach you the sword) and memories are the loneliest ("You love him," says the Amazon, eyes bright and mischievous; the others wait to laugh and really, they won't, since sometimes her temper is famous) and she craves some contact with all four of them by the time Makoto comes along.

She mostly watches in the command center. They monitor Luna. They monitor the Prince. Minako and Venus remember pulling the sword out both the Prince and the Princess. The hilt is cold, it's too cold, and she knows just how close it fits into her palm.

She eats a lot of ramen too.

The corner store isn't a terrible convenience store. She has a lot of chocolate too. She has never been one for sweets; he is. They don't talk much.

"This is the strangest place," he says to her, once, or maybe the next time they meet. Maybe it's the time after that.

"Not really," she says with a mouthful. She has sauce on her chin. He almost smiles (she swears) and thrusts a napkin into her palm. She uses her sleeve to spite him. Because she thinks it would. Or she wants it to.

"Why aren't you afraid of me?" he asks, then, and abruptly. She looks at him. His eyes are wide and too sharp. She sees gray and blue and red, always a lot of red. Her stomach is in knots. "You should be," he tells her.

"Maybe I will be."

She starts school soon.

 

 

 

Once he walks her to the park.

She wears new rain boots. He carries her umbrella.

They walk close.

 

 

 

"It's too salty," he says, and she laughs, later, when he tries to finish her ramen. He likes it. Somehow she knows he'd never say so. It's cold and she's slurping the rest of her soda down. Her phone buzzes at her hip. She needs to walk back to the arcade.

Her scarf is looped around his chair. "You're eating it wrong," she says.

And then --

 

 

Everyone is dead. He is inside the body. It is his body. She carries the blood of the Princess on her gloves. The Prince's blood is on her knees. 

Everyone is dead.

"You're a traitor," she says quietly, and he doesn't smile, he won't smile, and she knows the soldier when she sees him. The Queen still lives, she thinks. But not for long --

 

 

 

"We should stop this," she murmurs, and she says it as if they talk about things, about everything, even though there is nothing to talk about. She imagines them as lovers and she shifts forward.

They sit knee to knee. The attendant at the counter laughs at the television. Minako thinks her lips are too dry.

"Really though."

She puts her chopsticks down. Her napkin is folded between her fingers. He is watching her in the window. It's after eight, and her father will be home for dinner; her parents will eat together and her mother will call her after, if only for the merit of a habit.

"I shouldn't be doing this," she says too. She looks up at him. Her chin juts forward and he keeps staring at her in the glass. "I don't know you. You don't know me. I don't even know what you want."

He is still quiet.

Minako's brain stumbles. She sees flashes: green, blue, hot mouths, sheets twisting and swords, always swords. You never forget the sensation of your first kill. Or your last. The sword slips into a body too easily. You think: _not like this_. Then you feel something break. It could be a bone. Your opponent slips and drops in front of you. 

"-- and then you cut his throat," she whispers, wide-eyed.

The chair next to her shuffles back. Kunzite stands slowly.

She turns and looks at his jacket. The seal at his chest is familiar. No, she thinks. A crest. She thinks of kings and wars too.

"You were always fierce," he says, and then seems surprised that he says this, to her no less. "You were always too fierce."

He reaches out then, his fingers to her shoulders. They are heavy and they move, touching the collar of her blouse. They move again, slowly, along the collar, then against the rim of skin that circles her throat. She swallows and his thumb stops over her chin, his fingers trailing over her lip.

"I know you," he says and stumbles. They both know this feels like a mistake. "I know you," he tells her again.

Her eyes burn. 

"And I don't know why," he says. "I have a mission to fulfill."

Minako wants to throw up.

She forgets her scarf.

 

-

 

They don't remember everything.

Usagi is the Princess. Mamoru-san is the Prince.

Mamoru-san is missing.

"He's safe for now," Rei says as they walk to Usagi's house. She lingers closest to Minako, but talks to the other two girls. Minako is ashamed; the words won't even touch her throat. "We worry about the next step then," she says too. "And Usagi."

"Mostly Usagi-chan," Makoto murmurs. Her brow furrows and her head tilts to the sky. There are stars.

Minako sees the corner store first.

"We should bring something," she says. Her breath catches and she stumbles forward first. She ignores the eyes of the girls. Buy chocolate. Usagi likes sweets. She is the Princess.

Everything is coming quietly too. Memories are memories and pieces of herself that she's starting understand. Nothing is pragmatic or simple; the mission is still the mission. She remembers colors and laughter and Serenity holding too tightly to her side. She cannot talk to the girls yet. A leader deals with herself first. This isn't selfishness. It's survival.

It's still the same attendant at the counter. He smiles and half-waves. Rei and Makoto head to the magazines. Makoto laughs lightly at something Rei says. Another memory she doesn't have. Ami is left behind at the snacks. Minako takes the distraction too, mostly the distance, and winds herself to the drinks. She picks two cans. She picks chocolate.

Then he's there. 

She doesn't know how. She could herself know why. Or guess. Or assume. Or pick apart the memories she has already. She isn't angry. It's a strange and desperate sadness that unsettles her. She tells herself: _step away_ but she turns and steps into him instead.

He's here.

He's close and she smells him. There is no musk. He smells heavy and real. His shoulder brushes hers and her heart is pounding, but she's not afraid. He won't hurt her here, she thinks. Not yet, she thinks. She hears Makoto laugh again. Rei is unaware.

He does not kiss her.

She thinks he would. She thinks if it were another time. She thinks if he were crueler. They are too alike, she remembers then. His palm presses into hers and it's warm. She looks at his hands and his fingers and remembers, remembers the Prince and how he hangs limply off of his arms. Kunzite, she thinks. Her throat feels dry.

"You're here."

He does not say _I was waiting for you_. She imagines he could.

"I'm here," she replies. She wills herself not to shake.

She reaches and tries to grab chocolate. Her hand isn't moving. Neither Luna nor Artemis know how quickly their memories will be restored. She is not that woman; she's just a girl. She's just a girl, she wants to tell him.

His mouth presses into her jaw. She feels a small, plastic pouch touch her fingers. She doesn't jump and he lingers. The girls move into view. They should be at Usagi's soon.

The hairpins will settle into her palm; cheap and bronze. 

"You know best," he says.

 

-

 

Later she puts the pins into Usagi's hair.

Nothing feels the same.


End file.
